A Stolen Moment
by Jellicle Girl
Summary: One shot glimpse into the mind of a teenaged Snape as he enviously watches Lily, James, and the happiness they share. The kind of happiness that he will never know.


Disclaimer: Not mine. Exclusive property of J.K. Rowling & company. Reviews are welcomed. I love them veeeery much.

**A Stolen Moment**

He watched her, as he always did, from a distance. She was barely out of his reach, in an airy region all her own - a region in which his own worthless darkness could never have a part. Curled comfortably beneath the nodding willow with an open book and a stray shaft of light illuminating her face, she looked like Goodness embodied.

A small, ironic smile twitched his lips at that thought. In his estimation, Goodness was a petite red-haired girl with a smattering of gold-brown freckles and great, emerald-green eyes. Goodness was bossy and controlling, earnest and fiercely passionate, brilliantly intelligent and subtly witty.

Goodness was Lily Evans.

Severus Snape sighed and attempted to focus his mind on his own book - a heavy, leather-bound edition of _Most Potente Potions_ - but his attention was drawn irresistibly to the tiny, ethereal goddess resting her head against the willow's slender trunk. _So beautiful_, he thought. He imagined kissing her - of daring to besmirch her perfect purity with his own dark touch - and the thought smote his heart. He couldn't defile her that way. She deserved so much more than he was…more than any man could be.

As if his thoughts had perversely manifested themselves, James Potter strode across the rippling lawn toward her in the waning sunlight. He had evidently just finished Quidditch practice, for his broom was slung casually over his shoulder, and his t-shirt was damp with sweat. A surge ofhatred rose suddenlywithin Snape's chest like a serpent, poised to spring at the lightest provocation.

_Don't go near her, _he thought, concentrating hard. _Don't touch her, damn you! Don't TOUCH HER!_

But Potter defiantly plopped down next to Lily and slung a protective arm over her shoulder, drawing her curly head onto his chest. She nestled herself in the hollow of his throat, her eyes fluttering closed with lazy pleasure. They struck up a muffled conversation, weaving with soft-spoken words and tender glances an impassable barrier around them both -a barrier that Snape could never breach. No amount of dark magic could penetrate the love Lily and James shared.

Snape wasn't sure how it had happened - how the violent loathing that Lily hadharbored for Potter had morphed so suddenly into tenderest love. He moistened his lips as Potter pressed a kiss into the top of Lily's head. She giggled and brought one hand back to cradle his cheek. Snape wished he could believe that Potter had Lily bewitched, but he knew - somehow, he knew - that each of her loving actions sprang from the pureness of original feeling. From some mysterious impulse deep within her that had nothing to do with spells or enchantments. It was love in her eyes - true, unrestrained, selfless - and that knowledge stung like hell.

Snape had no idea how his own hatred for Evans had softened and ripened into an entirely different sort of feeling. At first, he'd attributed the change in him to lust, pure and simple. She was a beautiful girl whose soft curves practically begged men like him to indulge in naughty thoughts, but he'd quickly realized that his feelings for her extended far beyond mere attraction. He _definitely_ wanted her - wanted her with every bit of who he was. He longed to taste her lips and tongue with his own, to cradle her soft hips in his hands. But he didn't deserve her. And that thought in itself was undeniably screwed up. Lily was a Mudblood. A _Mudblood_. He was supposed to be repulsed by her, not humbled with reverence at her precious feet. It was so inherently wrong that her kindness had worked on him like a poison, infecting his heart so that it rebelled violently against his head.

----

Lily gazed down at the book her lap, but her brain was far removed from its battered pages. Her thoughts were entirely occupied with fuzzy daydreams of her boyfriend, James Potter. She relived with perfect clarity their latest passionate snogging session…His slender hands were tangled in her hair while his soft lipsworked a strange and wondrous magic over her. She sighed happily and let her head fall limply against the trunk of the willow she was sitting beneath, passing the time until James was finished with Quidditch practice.

She scanned the grounds eagerly for him but her hopes were blighted in the severest way. The only other person taking advantage of the last strands of daylight was Severus Snape, and he seemed absorbed in a book of his own. She momentarily considered talking to Severus, but she dismissed the thought quickly. He and James hated each other, and she was quite sure that Snape loathed her too. He despised Mudbloods, and Lily had no reason to believe that she was an exemption to his ugly prejudices.

But all disconcerting thoughts of Snape were suddenly driven from her brain when she spotted James trotting toward her across the grounds.

Her heart rate accelerated rapidly as a pleasurable, overwhelming warmth steeled over her. Seeing Jamesnever failed to make her stomach perform a variety of complicated somersaults. She lived for that feeling.

He plunked unceremoniously next to her, pulling her to him with a familiarity that felt wonderful. "How was practice?" she ventured as she snuggled into the warmth of his slightly sweaty, t-shirt clad chest. "Vicious?"

"Not too bad," he informed her. "Everyone was on their game today. Sirius was brilliant. We're bound to win the cup this year. There's no two ways about it."

Lily smiled affectionately. Oddly enough, she now viewed even his massive Quidditch-fixation in a soft, rosy pink light. She loved everything about James. Nothing could change that.

As the thought floated across her pragmatic brain, a natural question appeared in its wake.

_But why?_

What had changed between Potter and Evans? What had turned his puppy-dog obsession into serious, romantic affection? And what had transformed her blind loathing into the same?

Lily sighed. The changes had been subtle at first. James being extra-polite to her. And not in the 'I want-to-get-in-your-knickers,' sort of way. He earnestly attempted to reform. To nix the violent bragging, to treat Snape and every other Slytherin with civility, and mostly just to act like a caring human being. The fact that he'd made such strides in self-improvement - in large part - because of _her_ had touched some chord within Lily's naturally loving being, and that chord resonated still.

And now she loved him. Without reservations, without restraint, and with every fiber of her being.

James pressed a sound kiss into the top of her head, and her hand snaked of its own accord to cup his cheek. He leaned into her palm. "God, I love you," he whispered.

"I love you, too," she replied.

They rested like that for a long time, trading thoughts almost by osmosis, both blissfully aware of the twisted shell of a boy watching them longingly from a distance.


End file.
